


Brittle Eyes, Brittle Dreams

by firjii



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Blood Mage, Blood Magic, Brief description of violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Drama, F/M, Self-Defense, Suggested suicide, Suggestion of failed sexual assault (no victimization/graphic details…she successfully fought back), Vague References to Violence, asexual solavellan, borderline non-canonical ideas, canonically ambiguous elements, canonically disputable ideas about the Dalish (probably), concerned solas, exasperated lavellan, gray ace solavellan, grit - Freeform, minor battle fatigue, minor language, reluctant blood mage, vague suggestion of sensuality via Fade dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-02-06 02:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12807765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firjii/pseuds/firjii
Summary: A mage Lavellan in a state of shock returns to Skyhold after a tough mission. She is straining under crippling self-doubt and a colorful past. Solas offers support and comfort, but it is clear that Lavellan is bothered by something beyond the strain of helming the Inquisition.





	1. Chapter 1

She didn’t waver as Skyhold’s gates opened. Her chin was staunch and stalwart. Her eyes shone, but so did every other soldier’s against the stiff winds. Her hands were quiet fists in bulky gloves, clenched to conserve their warmth as much as to keep them from shaking. One huddled mass looked much the same as another to a tower guard. It was nothing noteworthy. It was nothing strange.

Her shoulders were hunched, as ever, but anyone glancing at her wouldn’t have seen the convulsions. They were disguised too well. She had borrowed another soldier’s armor that very morning, knowing that Inquisition scouts were so prodigious at clearing the mountain paths that she wouldn’t need the best of armor for the final leg of the journey. The set she’d chosen was two sizes too large and made of thick plate, nothing at all like the delicate scales of her favored equipment. The extra metal set a chill in her core, but it almost completely concealed her shaking – and, despite its extra weight, it was stiff enough to keep her standing upright, a proposal which would have otherwise proven challenging.

In the main courtyard, sentries coming and going from watches or missions observed the usual courtesies as she passed by, but she hardly acknowledged them. No matter. Every able body who had managed to return with her was in the same general state of dumbfounded weariness. As she shuffled through the atrium, the lingering smells of a hearty supper only served to turn her stomach further. Each crackle of each inviting hearth and torch only made her twitch and flinch on this night. The vibrant hues cast by the flames did little to brighten her ashen face. Her heavy plate boots – also borrowed, though for the purely practical reason of support for a sprained ankle – imposed a grim, echoing patter through the hall.

She abandoned the idea of scaling her private stairwell in armor when her foot buckled after just three steps. She tugged her gloves off with her teeth, which only made her gums ache when she accidentally bit down on metal instead of leather. Her fingers shakily plucked at straps on the boots, which she heaved against the wall with a clatter when she was finally free of them. The process to remove the remainder of the armor was similarly lengthy. Her face was flushed by the time she completed the ritual. Her nose reddened. She sat in silence, momentarily satisfied that she had at least found a solitary corner to retreat to. 

She stayed fixed in place for an hour. Finally craving her quarters and a more hospitable material than ancient stones to lean her head against, she managed to scale an entire flight of stairs before pausing again. She struggled on as far as the forgotten Red Templar banner, the one whose presence utterly baffled everyone in Skyhold, including her. She watched it flutter slightly in an invisible draft, transfixed by the color otherwise absent in the passageway.

Her ankle actively throbbed. She sat again and sobbed, but it gave way to something else when her throat was raw enough. 

She slept.

                                               * * *

“There must be easier ways to bring discomfort on yourself.”

She jerked awake and reflexively gasped at the sound of a voice – any voice. She drew a few chaotically rapid breaths before she fully processed the face before her. “Who told you where I was?” she rumbled.

Solas kept a neutral look, though the light in his eyes seemed to shift to something still and careful. “No willing person would choose such a place for sleep without a reason.”

She blinked, slow to realize both the apparent passage of time and her place within it. “And what about _you_? It’s an ungodly hour for anyone but a bandit.”

He moved his gaze down to his feet as he plucked his way up the steps. “My experiences have shown me that sleep and rest are two very different things.” He carefully sat down opposite her. “No warrior easily finds either after a skirmish, short of complete exhaustion.”

His bright eyes were a mismatch to his serene face. His relaxed sitting posture contradicted his perfectly-squared shoulders, ever assertive. She observed the unlikely combination for a moment. “Even exhaustion can keep you awake if you’re tired enough.”

He watched her stiffly shift against the wall. “You were wounded.”

“Everyone was.” She gestured weakly to her face, to dozens of glancing nicks along her jawbone and a mild burn on an ear. “It’s not bad. Most saw worse.”

“And your ankle?”

She glanced down, slightly sheepish. She shook her head. “I was stupid. I tripped and fell. I wasn’t used to the new stave. The weighting’s wrong.”

“Staying in a cold corner like this one will only worsen an injury.”

She drew a heavy breath. “It’s alright. I’ve had worse. They already did what they could.”

He watched her amicably for a moment. “With your permission – I could do _more_.”

“No. It’s alright.” She cringed away. “Don’t.”

His eyes flashed. “Do you enjoy letting something blind your judgment?”

She shrugged. “It’s easy to endure pains you can prove.”

“I doubt that the poor in Kirkwall or slaves in Tevinter would say the same.”

She ran a distracted hand through her sweat-dulled hair. “We’re all slaves to _something_.”

His forehead constricted a fraction, though she didn’t see it. “I know. Let me break those chains.”

“It’s not about my damned _foot_ ,” she huffed. Her voice held a strangled quality.

“Then let me remedy it so you might focus on your true problems.”

She held her head as she propped her elbows on her knees. “Alright,” she finally muttered. She straightened. “Fine.”

He removed both layers of her third-hand socks and brushed off the dirt and grime that had somehow snuck into the impenetrable-looking plate boots. He peered at the swelling at length, analyzing each vein and tendon. She cast her gaze away determinedly. “You’re not as hurried as the field surgeons. Were you ever a healer?”

He ignored her at first, too intent to speak. “One who has been out alone in the world must know a little of everything.”

She winced when he checked a bruise on her heel, but his tone drew her eyes onto him. “And what _do_ you know?”

He stopped his work. “We will not stop Corypheus tonight or even tomorrow. You should not try to tell yourself otherwise, especially when you only have one sound foot to stand on.”

In her dazed, pained state – though his quiet magic was correcting the swelling even as he spoke – it took her a protracted interval to realize that the advice was, perhaps, partially a joke. She tried to smile but managed little more than a grimace.

He returned his attention to her ankle. “No wonder. You dislocated it as well as sprained it.”

“I know. They set it back into place.”

“Yes, and then they very likely redoubled the problem by making you walk several miles through slippery mountain passes,” he lilted. His chipper scorn barely aimed past her.

“Mountain fortresses aren’t meant to be found.”

He made the smallest noise of neutral, distracted agreement. A glow slowly formed around his hands, green like the Anchor’s light but somehow less – unnatural. He murmured spell words, though so quietly that he scarcely made more noise than a few random consonants. His eyes narrowed a fraction, peering at her as if unable to see her correctly. His face quietly lit up. “You dislike the damp inside Skyhold.”

“Anyone would. It gets into your bones if you’re not careful.”

“Of course. You are unused to great buildings.”

She snorted. “I’m _unused_ to trekking miles up stairs just to get to my own bed.”

“I have no doubt that any soldier or scout in Skyhold would have lent you–”

“It wouldn’t be any good,” she snapped with a jabbing wag of her head. She closed her eyes and sighed. “It’s as you said. I won’t sleep properly tonight. I only want the quiet. I can’t get that with dozens of people nattering on a few yards away.”

“Adamant upset you.”

She focused her tired face back onto his and frowned. “What’s that to do with it?”

“ _Everything_ , I suspect.” He hooked one eyebrow up a fraction as a ghost of a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, but both gestures soon evaporated. “Since then, you stay outside as much as possible. I sometimes think that you want to be sure that we escaped the Fade by checking if the sky is the correct color.”

Her eyes darkened. “You never say what you mean. Speak your damned mind for once.”

“Would you like to check it again – now?”

“Check what?”

He smiled in earnest and dipped his chin down. “The sky, _vhenan_.”

 _Vhenan_. The tiny word softened her face, as if it made her remember something equally elusive and reviving. “It’s nighttime.”

“Then it should be all the easier to see if anything is amiss. The raw Fade is vivid and strange no matter the time of day.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Was that not what you planned to do?”

She rubbed her eyes and huffed, but she considered the offer soberly. “Help me up.” Even without armor, she stood heavily as he braced her lame side. He ably harmonized his sound steps with her timid ones as they ascended the final stairs, even when she abruptly paused several times for breath.

“Are you still in pain?”

“It’s just the memory of falling. It knocked the wind out of me.” She chuckled weakly. “I always remember the _way_ I earned a bruise better than the pain from one.”

They mastered the final stone steps. He spied a multicolored stole on a table – one of many tokens from the Avvar for thwarting Hakkon – and snatched it up as the two tottered past. He opened a balcony door for her, but she suddenly removed her arm from his shoulder and stubbornly limped the few remaining steps to go outside. She clumsily eased herself down against a pillar. He draped the stole around her, taking an unusual length of time for the task. She nodded blandly and tugged the stole tighter. He sat next to her but noted her irregular shaking – which had persisted since she had woken – and thought the better of embracing her.

“The snow has its own glow at night,” she muttered. “I forgot about that.” She chuckled soundlessly and tightly. “Isn’t that silly? We spend half our time in Skyhold, but I still don’t remember everything about the place.”

“We often ignore what is nearest to our faces.”

“Does that make us foolish or stupid?”

“Neither. It only means that we constantly adjust to circumstances.”

She sighed. After a long moment, she leaned against his side – barely. “Everything always circles around on itself, doesn’t it?” she muttered. “Sooner or later, we always find the same paths and the same markers as everyone who came before us. The paths might look a little different, but you can’t avoid them – not really. They’re the only choice.” 

A muffled but musical whir of mountain gusts echoed out for a long moment while they both stared at the snow, made all the more brilliant that night by the full moon.

She ground her jaw. “I can’t ignore it anymore.”

Solas crinkled his face at the remark and glanced at her only to find her tired stare fixed firmly on mountain peaks. “None of us can.”

She sneered. “You don’t even know what I mean.”

“I know your frustration. What else is there to understand?”

She shivered and leaned a little harder into his side. “I don’t mind being something different than what I began as. I just don’t want that to be _less_.” 

“You –” He swallowed his words and shook his head gently. “That will never happen.”

“You were there. You heard what Ameridan said.”

“The Avvar siege was the most difficult since Haven. You took his words too harshly in the heat of battle fatigue–”

“He couldn’t even stand,” she cut over him. “You saw him. That’s all that was left. He was alone for centuries. Who knows what he thought while he was there? No one should have to sacrifice so much and be remembered for so little. The world almost lost him.”

“Do you expect to be forgotten after all this?”

Her head lowered abruptly, as if a drug had overwhelmed her waking senses. Her shoulders rounded forward, just as they had done upon returning to Skyhold. “He knew. Things weren’t the same for him, but –” Her jaw clenched. “Everything’s been a blur since this started. Either I don’t know what to do and I need to defer to others or I know _exactly_ what to do but can’t. When I saw him, I saw myself.”

“Is that such an evil thing? He was an honorable man.” 

“We’ve recruited dozens of agents and thousands of soldiers. None of them ever made me _think_ about it. When you’re all thrown together because the world’s gone to hell, it’s easy to stop seeing yourself. But Ameridan –” Her lip curled. “He made me _look_. He made me see it.”

Solas finally stared at her. 

Her face was slick. Her chin jittered. Her eyes were cavernous. She didn’t look at him – not even a glance. 

His far hand clenched and unclenched. It moved several inches above the ground, but his elbow was an immobilizing splint. He let his hand rest back on the stone slabs again.

A single sniffle escaped her. “It doesn’t matter about being _chosen_. It matters because everyone will suffer if I can’t get this sorted. And if I can’t, it _won’t_ matter. _We_ won’t matter.” Her face crimped, but her sobs were silent and dragging, like the breath inside her was insufficient for the act.

His far hand conducted the same argument with itself a second time. He looked away and frowned before his head bobbed back in her direction. As if in care of an ancient scroll, he took the closer of her hands in his. His other hand soon joined it. She scarcely reacted. “I doubt that Ameridan’s words drove you here.”

“Why?” Her single word held the stretched singsong of barely-restrained collapse.

“You let the most important ones drift away.”

She set a keen glare on him, but it wavered when he met it with quietude.

“‘Take moments of happiness where you find them. The world will take the rest.’” He squeezed her hand.

She went a long moment without blinking as her mouth curled into a grimace. “It already did.” She limply removed her hand from his.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite Solas’ efforts to comfort her, a mage Lavellan is profoundly haunted by her past. Unable to suppress the truth any longer, she makes several weighty confessions – including her true status within her clan and the fact that she is a blood mage, though an unwitting and reluctant one. Solas offers to help her by taking her into the Fade – after all, it wouldn’t be the first time.

He stayed with her that night. They lingered on the balcony for hours despite the cold, huddled against the hard flagstones. He murmured spell words and watched as a barely-detectable warmth barrier surrounded them like a blanket, an additional wave emanating near her bare and still-tender feet. After a time, the mountain gusts mercifully stilled themselves. She avoided looking at him, but her frame gradually slumped more and more, not so much relaxed as unable to maintain rigidity. Thick silence settled on both of them. Inadvisable as it was to remain outside, he didn’t dare move her. She still shook occasionally. His gaze often flicked about, but he only rarely paused from his vigil.

When her eyelids steadily became heavier, he risked shifting his arm until it was around her shoulder. He didn’t so much pull her in as let her lean into his warmth. The light in her face shifted somehow – her own way of acknowledging approval – but was still all too dull. He braced for more waves of her grief, but something was smothering the tides now. She wouldn’t, didn’t, _couldn’t_ sleep. She only sat in the shadow of his stillness.

They both wandered in their own lulls, motionless but for their breaths, a thousand miles apart despite their closeness. Their invisible sphere of truce persisted until the hour before earliest dawn. Solas checked her face yet again. She still fought to stay awake, her eyes barely comprehending her surroundings but far from restful.

He cleared his throat with a silent but drawn-out swallow. “I want to show you something, _vhenan_.”

For a long moment, her lull remained unbroken – but as ever, the sound of the endearment drew her out of herself enough to speak. She shifted her head slightly. “You’ve shown me enough.”

“But not what you _need_ to see.”

They were both silent again, but wrinkles formed lightly all around her face. “I know what I need to see. I’ll never see it. No one will.” She sighed, for the first time with only a ghost of a shudder. “It doesn’t exist.”

“Perhaps not in the _waking_ world, no.”

She snorted – barely. “The Fade?”

“Come with me.”

“No.” Her legs folded tightly into herself as she coiled away. The warmth barrier disintegrated with her movement.

“You have already seen it.”

“No.” Her hands vaguely reached for her head. “Not there.”

“Let me help you.”

She staggered to her feet and paced. Her ankle only gave her a light limp now.

He watched mutely as she passed him four times. “I would like to do more for you.”

She folded her arms tightly against the pervasive chill. “Why?”

“Is it not obvious?”

“You’re here for the Inquisition. This isn’t _anyone’s_ business – _especially_ not the Inquisition’s.”

He stood. “You are our leader.” His arms fought with themselves again, this time to disguise wing-flaps of sternness. “How can it _not_ be my concern?” His hands won enough sovereignty to extend out from his sides, his palms more like oars than appendages.

“It’s not about what happened today or yesterday or last week.”

A single finger on one of his hands twitched as he swallowed, but his shoulders locked in place. “No. It is not. It _never_ is.”

Her head bobbed in every direction. “Some demons can be killed. Some can’t.”

He bridged the distance between them by two steps. “And some do not need to be destroyed at all. Some can be reasoned with.”

Her mouth curled a fraction, her lips cracking slightly against the brisk air. “ _Reasoned_ with?”

“Look no further than Cole. No one expected you to let him stay with us.”

“Cole’s not a demon.”

“Spirit and demon alike hold the same potential for dangerous acts. They both hold great power. Who can say how Cole might have changed if you had turned your back on him?”

“He’s a rare kind of spirit. You said so yourself. You can’t measure _anything_ against one wild chance.”

“Has that stopped you from seeking his advice?”

“ _He_ finds _me_. It’s the same for most of us.”

“And now _I_ have found you. We both try to offer insight above all else. I –” He stopped his thought short when he saw her shake her head more emphatically. She paced the balcony several more times. The same finger twitched at his side again. “When you are sick, you seek a healer. When you need counsel, you speak with your advisors. Am I not an advisor?”

“ _Fenedhis_ ,” she hissed while her back was turned. She stopped her fidgeting and slowly faced him. She chewed her lip hard as her head jerked away. “You know what you are,” she murmured. She closed her eyes through a long breath. “I spoke first. Do you remember, _mir atish’an_?”

He diffused his surprise at her word choice by the time she set her eyes on him. He nodded, barely disguising the unsettled swallow that had imposed itself on him.

“You were the only elf in Haven at first. But I didn’t care about that.” She fixed a darker stare on him. “You knew. I think you saw it the moment we met. You just didn’t say so. You saw _all_ of it, but you kept your silence from that day to this.” She nodded, her head lingering for an instant in a vague, clumsy bow as her clenched elbows threatened to clutch her torso irrevocably tightly. “ _Ma serannas_. I thought they’d find me out. You could’ve told them. You didn’t.”

Amid a smooth brow, his eyes frowned, the only indication of confusion on his entire face.

She grimaced, a stiff and broken attempt at a smile amid her persistent exhaustion. “And then we came to Skyhold. You finally showed me what you thought of me, and _still_ you kept silent.” With timid, still-lopsided steps, she walked to him and took his hand. Her posture became less tense. “You knew all of it, but you didn’t care. I don’t have a right to ask for any more help from you.”

He reached for her shoulder but reconsidered at the last possible moment and instead clasped her fingers, frigid from the elements. “Your secrets are your own affair. Whatever I know about you is gained from speech and deed, just as anyone else would do.”

A weak smile crossed her mouth as a single voiceless, hollow chuckle escaped her. “Don’t lie. I know what you’ve done.”

“I would never–”

“Then who’s been watching me at night?” she cut over him. Her face lit with scorn. She broke away from him and paced one more lap.

His face pinched as he suppressed a series of nervous breaths. “Yes. I expected you to forget, but–”

She snorted as her eyes widened into attentiveness. “Why would I want to forget _that_?”

He sighed. “The truth cannot hide forever.”  

“Good, because I’ve seen you. I always remember. And that’s well and good.” Her brow danced. “I _chose_ you, damn it, and then you chose me. But the missions don’t leave much energy for anything else sometimes. It’s hardly the road to a great love.” She shrugged. “And we – we’re not like the others.” She nodded soberly. “I don’t know what we are. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care. It suits both of us. It’s not what I would’ve thought of, but it’s the best way.”

He swallowed again, hiding it with less fluency this time. “ _Ir abelas_ –”

“No, you’re not. And you shouldn’t be. You knew exactly what you were doing, and so did I.” For an instant, her frustration lifted. Her eyes shimmered with joy – for that one instant. “We both wanted it. We still do, or else it wouldn’t have gone on for months. I guide it as much as you do. I didn’t know I could.”

She huffed so forcefully that a ragged wheeze threatened its edges. “Do you understand? _I didn’t know I could_.” She dug her frozen hands through her scalp. “That’s how long it’s been since I dreamt. It’s not about what we do or don’t do. _I’ve had_ _dreams_.” Her arms punched the air. “I stopped dreaming years ago. I was like a dwarf, and I was happy about it. But then all this started, and –” She chewed her cheeks. “I dream every single night now. I can’t stop myself.”

“Does that surprise you?”

Her eyes were reduced to slits as her gaze darted around. “Not everyone can accept what they see as easily as you do.”

“You are a rift mage now. Your connection to the Fade is bound to be stronger.”

“And what _is_ a rift mage?” Her nostrils flared in tandem with her tight breaths. Her eyes seared against the potent remnants of the night’s chill. “They didn’t exist before the Breach. No one understands why you could be one. No one knows what _I_ am either way.” She raised her arm, unclenched for the first time that night. She peered down at her hand – by all appearances, an ordinary hand in that moment. “Do you know what it’s like?”

“I have watched you wield it dozens of times–”

“ _Do you know what it’s like?_ ” she spat, a chasm of time separating each word.

His shoulders relaxed, but he swallowed again. “Tell me.” His voice was gray and small against the swirling mountain winds that increasingly hailed the dawn. “Tell me, _ma vhenan_.”

Her breathing slowed at the invocation. She closed her eyes. Her face smoothed a fraction. “It doesn’t hurt. I always expect it to. It _should_ , damn it. But –” She pinched her closed eyes even tighter. “It’s like there’s a wall between us – the Anchor, I mean.” She gently waved her fingers as she flailed for speech. “I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s new – or old, I-I don’t know,” she faltered. “And every time, it’s the same. There’s a rush. There’s a storm. I can barely stay on my feet when it comes. A hundred different things pull on me. Some of them have claws. It’s possession, only – only it can’t find a tether, so it looks for a rift instead.”

She opened her eyes. “But _every time_ , it’s the same. Whatever separates the Anchor from me –” She shook her head. “Solas, it barely holds. Ever time I stand in the eye of a rift, I count the seconds between disruptions because one _second_ longer –” She chewed her cheeks. “If one of them takes even a second longer to close, I won’t come back from it. I know I won’t.” She shivered and stared at perpetually snowy peaks. She suddenly clamped a palm over her mouth.

He inched forward, the quiet patter of his feet easily disguised by the early dawn breezes.

He reached out. His fingers barely touched a few strands of her auburn hair.

He withdrew. “Is that what the Fade showed you?” he murmured.

She snorted sharply, her gaze still focused on the mountains. “I don’t need to go to the Fade to know that. I _live_ it.” She exhaled, quietly this time. “It’s not about that. What I see in the Fade –” She turned to face him. A spasm – only one – jerked through her chin. She clamped her jaw hard against it. “Why do you think I went to the Conclave, _truly_?”

“You were deemed one of the fittest to observe it. You are also Andrastian.”

“Am I?”

“No proud Dalish would be as comfortable among humans as you are.”

“Who said I was comfortable around them?”

“You also know far too much of Chantry doctrine to only be bluffing.”

“And why do you think that is?”

“Your clan is respected for its willingness to trade with other cultures. I do not agree with your choice any more or less than I agree with Dalish beliefs, but I understand why it happened.”

She shook her head slowly and deliberately. “No – you don’t.” Despite the ever-intensifying sunlight, she shivered in earnest. “There’s more than one reason to learn about another race. There’s more than one kind of survival. It’s not always about telling people what they want to hear. It’s about what they _don’t_ want to hear, too. I think a lot of our kind have been branded as traitors without cause.”

“Do you believe you are among them?”

“There wasn’t a reason to say anything before now. But it won’t leave me alone.”

He kept his peering level and calm. “Then tell me and be rid of it.”

She glared at the icy peaks, miles away but so blatantly visible. “It was a few months before the Conclave. I’d been ill. It was the first sun I’d felt in weeks. I begged to go halla riding. I was never very good with it, but I loved every moment around them. Animals don’t ask many questions or demand many answers. They can’t hold grudges. If you look after them, they’ll look after you. Halla herding is different from anything else the Dalish do. We keep crafting a secret sometimes, even from each other.” A dim smile crossed her face. “But a halla in prime condition – that’s a point of pride for anyone to see.”

She leaned her hip against the balcony. “The pens were a mile away from the camp. Some children followed me. They were so small. It was nothing to put them up alongside me. We rode the afternoon away. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time.” She stared downward for a long moment. “We came across three traders. It was the right time of year for it. I almost offered to send word on ahead of them, but they looked – wrong.”

“Were they possessed?”

She sneered. “Does it always need to be about possession? Humans have enough reasons to be cruel.” She sighed tightly. “I should’ve known better, but it was a fine day. We were all cocky from the riding.” Her shoulders rounded severely as her head drooped down to the side. “I should’ve known better.”

“What happened?”

“What do you think?” she snapped.

His eyes withdrew, wincing though unblinking.

She shook her head. “It wasn’t like that. They asked for my staff.”

“Is that all?”

“It was plenty. But it only started that way. One of them was quicker than he looked. The children made it too tricky to grab my staff while I was on the halla. As soon as I was on the ground, he grabbed for the smallest child – a little lad, he was barely old enough to run properly. Then they shot the halla. One of the children couldn’t dismount in time. It smashed her leg when it fell. I still remember the sound. It –”

She darted to the railing. At first, the movements might have been mistaken for sobs, but then her throat made the toneless noises of retching. Her stomach was clearly empty: nothing issued from her mouth save for the thickened spit that often came with grief. Solas rushed to her side and made a few gentle thumps between her shoulderblades, the only practical help to offer her in the situation.

When the heaving quieted, she shakily wiped her mouth and sneered again. “They didn’t want my staff,” she rasped with a waver, her vocal cords plagued by remnants of stomach acid. “They wanted what so many others wanted. Maybe it didn’t matter. I’m not a –” She scoffed. “It’s not so hard to slip away with someone. Everyone tries it sooner or later.” As if electrified, her head suddenly wagged. “But I didn’t want to – not there, not with them. Not like that. Not with children watching. Who _does_?” She sniffled openly and frequently, the ratio of grief and digestive restlessness unclear. “But I would’ve done it. I almost agreed.”

Solas wavered. His mouth began to mutely form words several times, but he waited for her to continue.

“One of them had already been drinking. He stank of it. I don’t know how, but he flanked me while I was looking at the others. He smashed a bottle into my shoulder. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe. But I smelled the blood.” She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed deeply through her nose. “I still do sometimes. There was so much. It was so easy to call on it. It was so quick.” She shook her head. Her face briefly contorted into a half-committed retch but inexplicably disappeared.

He swallowed, quite discreetly. “Then you saved them.”

“They were all alive at the end of the day, if that’s what you mean.”

“You defended the weak and innocent. You punished injustice.”

“Except I didn’t defend them until after they’d been hurt. And I didn’t want to punish injustice. I only wanted to stop it before it got worse.”

“You practiced blood magic.”

Her chin jerked. “Yes.”

“Many times, by the sound of it.”

She ground her jaw. “ _Yes_.”

“And yet you criticized my openness to it.”

“It’s not theory, Solas. I’ve seen what it can do.”

“You saw necessity. Any soldier in any war with any weapon can say the same.”

“A sword is merciful. Poison is strong. Blood magic –” She sneered. “You can’t understand much from watching someone use it. You don’t know what it is until you’ve done it yourself. It lingers, just like the Anchor. The more you use it, the more you remember the feeling. I don’t know if it’s meant to be like that, but it is.”

His face whirred with activity as he pieced together the unsaid. “You expected to leave dreaming behind. Your connection to the Fade was weak enough that you forgot it.”

“I didn’t mean to do it. I only used it when there wasn’t another way. I don’t like how it feels. Can you understand that?” She scraped at her scalp again, her hair now especially disheveled and dull. “We’re not discouraged from using it. We _trust_ it. Everyone knows that. But I don’t like calling on it. I never did. It’s too strong.” She scoffed. “The trouble with bending death and violence to your will is that there’s no subtle way to do it. If you’re using it to protect someone, it’s not a gentle path. It’s a damned rockslide.”

He pondered hurriedly. “And yet to use it so well, you must have also risked severing your connection with ordinary magic.”

Her entire body flinched as she leveled a stark glare at him. “You mean I forced myself into a corner.” Her own version of his furious lilt escaped her mouth quietly and methodically. “Yes. I’m next to worthless without a stave now.”

“But you know how to use it _safely_.”

One of her eyebrows hooked skyward. “Do I?”

A flicker of surprise registered in his face. “You are no abomination. You have control of your senses. You exercise better judgment than most.”

“And how do I know if that’s enough?”

“Do you truly doubt yourself after all you have seen?”

Slowly, sweepingly, deliberately, she raised a hand and massaged the bridge of her nose with three fingers. “What have we really seen? Impossibilities. Mistakes. Accidents. I’m still not sure what happened. It doesn’t feel – _real_.” She made a quiet fist at her side on the last word. “And if I can’t judge that anymore, how can I judge safety? How can I –”

She picked up her lame foot and toed the stones slowly, not so much scraping her skin as toying with the thin layer of perpetual ice resting on the steadfast footing. “It was a long journey. I wouldn’t have managed it otherwise.” She snorted. “No one talks about it, but some of the hunters act like guardians – minders.” She squirmed. “They never would’ve let me leave otherwise. I’d saved enough people that they weren’t in a hurry to trade me to another clan. There aren’t any other Lavellans in the last two generations who can use it as well I can. The timing couldn’t have been slower. I took the only chance I had while I had it. The clan wanted me to spy on the humans. I didn’t see a reason to argue against it.”

“Did your Keeper know?”

“That I wasn’t coming back or that I didn’t want to live anymore?”

He cringed despite his smooth face. “Mages are cherished among the Dalish, but they are also rare. I would not think that a Keeper would voluntarily cast aside her First–”  

“I wasn’t First,” she murmured.

He frowned for an instant. “Our informants were led to believe otherwise.”

“And whose doing do you think that was? I knew I wouldn’t be admitted into the Conclave if I said I was only a Second. Everyone knew that.”

His eyes closed for an instant as he dipped his head away. “You would not have let yourself walk into that fate.”

“Why not?”

His eyes flared. “They would have killed you on sight.” His tones registered loudly enough to trigger a small echo against the vast mountains. “Maleficarum. It would have been the last word you heard anyone utter before they cut you down.”

She shook, but her shoulders remained squared. “It was my choice.”

He swallowed. He closed his eyes again as he sighed once. His persistently rebellious finger twisted against its neighbor as he collected his temper. “You were upset from a trauma and exhausted from a long journey,” he managed barely above a mutter, his outburst already forgotten and his voice an ordinary cadence. “You would have seen reason before deciding anything.”

“I’d already decided.”

“Why would you wait to be killed by a Templar?”

“I needed to be sure that someone would do it properly. I left my clan on good terms. None of them would have seen me die at the hands of another elf.”

“And the other path?”

She clenched away and smacked a hand on the wall. Her jaw chewed furiously, as if she meant to bite a hole through to the outside of her cheek. Her eyes pinched a fraction.

“Anyone can find death without help from another.”

“Don’t think I didn’t try,” she snarled, though her voice fell flat. Her eyes shimmered. “I couldn’t – it didn’t –” She huffed sharply. “I think the magic tried to stop me. Something always went wrong.”

His face vacillated with a whirl of contradictions. His glare was equally matched with softer motives. “‘Always’? Were there so many times when darkness blinded you?”

The tears threatening to escape her eyes receded as seething replaced them. “I saw _everything_. The rest of the world was blind. They thought I could ignore it. They thought I’d learn to tolerate it.” Her head wagged erratically twice. “It’s been twenty years, Solas. If I could abide it, I would’ve known by now. I couldn’t do it anymore.” She jabbed a finger at her own chest. “ _It was my choice_ ,” she rasped through bared teeth. “Free will is the _only_ thing the Dalish have left. It’s the _only_ thing that keeps us from being slaves or city guttersnipes.” One of her palms darted to her mouth but refused to settle in place for more than a moment. “I was ready.”

“For death?”

“When you live that close to danger for so long, it stops feeling like a life. I was there. It could’ve happened. Another hour and it might’ve been done. But then everyone was distracted.” Her forehead contorted as she stared at the ground. “I only found Justinia – the ritual –” She paced several disorderly steps. “I only found them because I was looking for someone to confess to.” She clamped her jaw down. “And since then, it’s only been one distraction after another after another. I only wanted it to stop. That’s _still_ all I want sometimes. I don’t know how to summon or banish it. I don’t know what provokes it. Do you understand? I’m _not_ in control. Why do you think I fight as I do? Why else would I stay so far behind and seek higher ground?” She made a tired, voiceless noise of disapproval. “I’m only there for the rifts. If we can help others along the way, all the better.”

He inched closer, but he stopped. Her tight fists – idle but vigilant at her sides – were warning enough. “You look at yourself too harshly.”

“I’ve seen danger. It’s all I have left.”

“Do you _truly_ believe that?” His words were louder again, but there was only a distant note of scorn this time. His eyes blazed. “The Inquisition might only be said to be yet another military group. Your advisors could only be seen as pawns who offered to be used purely for their innate talents. And _I_ –” His throat collapsed on the last tiny word.  

Her eyes locked with his at the sound of frailty, so scarcely visible from him. Her scorn abruptly halved, but she remained silent, her erratic remnants of shock still too dominant and heady to allow her to lash out at him again.

“Did you ever harm anyone without purpose?”

“Of course not,” she rushed.

“Did you ever harm a friend?”

“No, but–”

“Then why do you see yourself as evil?”

“ _I didn’t know I’d done it_ ,” she squeaked breathily. She hugged herself. “The first time was an accident. I was watching someone’s son for the day. We wandered too far. There were wolves. I had to stop them. He was too small to fight back. So was I, but I was the elder. I had a good knife. One of the pack set on me. I had a lucky aim. It should’ve killed it, but –” Her knuckles whitened around her arms. “But something happened. I felt it. I called out to it. It felt like it would help. Before I knew what I was doing, I – they –” Her lips curled sharply. “When it was over, I swore the boy to silence.”

“You used magic in its purest form, for a pure intent.”

“Magic should never be a surprise like that. It should never come without thought or warning.”

“I doubt that it did.”

“So it’s all my fault?”

“There is no blame. You are merely more talented than others with a certain kind of magic.”

“I don’t know how to use it. I don’t know when it might come. I thought a bad enough fright would stir it, maybe spend it altogether, but –”

He waited for her to continue, but a long silence lapsed instead. Without so much as making a noise from a flutter of his clothing, he walked to her and rested his hands lightly around her elbows. “Thank you. I understand now.”

She frowned, searching his face to determine motive. Her shoulders relaxed marginally. “About what?”

“You forgave the Grey Wardens because you cannot forgive yourself.”

“I forgave them because guilt from believing a lie is as hard to ignore as guilt from realizing the truth.”

“Then let me help you see that truth.”

“You can’t.” She paced intently, feverishly, haphazardly.

His eyes narrowed. “You will not accept praise because you insist that it is a lie. You will not accept gifts because you assume that they are placations. What else is left to give you but the truth?”

“You can’t always find truth in the Fade.”

“You can when you behold history.”

She stopped. “History?”  

“Someone who is very determined can glimpse the past for the moment that it was, not for its memorable details.”

She resumed her pacing. “Then it won’t work for me.”

He took her wrist as she passed him.

She tugged away halfheartedly. “Let go.”

“At least come inside. Rest. You need it, _da’len_.”

For an instant, she shot a fiery glare at him, but the look that he returned it with gave her pause. She breathed heavily through her nose twice, her nostrils once again flaring furiously despite her otherwise calm countenance. She nodded. He let go of her, but her hand soon found his. He smiled the same smile that he had made in their first stolen moment as he led her to the nearest seating place in her quarters. She fell asleep almost before she could lean her head against the back of the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The references to shenanigans in the Fade were meant to be open-ended…the couple *might* use Fade dreams as a way to indulge themselves in a way that (for various reasons) isn’t feasible in the waking world – or perhaps they only lazily snuggle under the stars and listen to cicadas. It’s honestly up to you. I admit there might be a certain kind of subtext there, but I tried to keep it vague enough that more than one interpretation was possible. To me, incorporating this made sense in the context of the game world as well as that of a gray ace relationship. I don’t picture them as aromantic, so I wanted to convey their mutual longing but frame it in a way that made sense on more than one level.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a long and necessary sleep imposed on her by Solas' magic, Ellana wakes only to find herself wading in still more strife, a resolution no more obvious after rest than before it. Once again, Solas offers to help her find peace - or at least a measure of understanding - in the Fade. She finally accepts, only to find that Solas has a much different plan in mind than anything Ellana has seen thus far in dreams.

A tiny _clink_ woke her, though her eyes didn’t immediately snap open. Instead, she frowned as waking slowly spread through her limbs. Dishes? No. It was something more muffled and solid: a mortar and pestle. Her frown deepened as a few vague questions found weak spots in her haze, but the expression disintegrated by the time she opened her eyes.

She was stretched on the couch, though it took her a long moment for the fact to register despite staring at her limbs. She tried to swing her legs over the side and lift herself up into a sitting position, but her arms were too slack and dull for such an ambitious act. She pushed herself up on her elbows and tried to rotate her neck, but a crick stopped her. She hissed through gritted teeth.

Solas scurried into her line of sight but said nothing. “Better,” he murmured approvingly with a nod after he spent a moment considering her.

She snorted and reached for her neck. “This is _better_?”

“You slept.”

She swore as she rubbed the stiffness out of her muscles but hesitated when she noticed the afternoon daylight. “I slept all day?”

His mouth shifted carefully. “ _A_ day.”

She blinked as she rushed to sit upright. “But how could –” A hunger spasm in her stomach confirmed his answer before she could finish her thought. “No one sleeps that long.”   

He smiled faintly.

She stood. “But I didn’t –” Her knees buckled, further evidence that she had been immobile for a prolonged period. Solas moved for her, but she waved him away with a jab of her slender arm and a tiny, frustrated grunt. She sat down huffily and braced her head until the vertigo ebbed. “It felt different.” She rubbed her forehead and temples.

“Your mind ceded to your body.”

She paused. As if her head weighed an unfathomably great amount, she craned it up to him. She stared. “You did something.”

“I did what anyone would do in the same situation.”

“Which was?”

“Only enough to let you forget your worries for a time.”

“By making me sleep for a _day_ _and a night_?”

Solas resumed his methodical rummaging with several bowls on a table.

She frowned. “What are you doing?” Her neck was still too weak to twist around to look at him. She heard him stir several things into glass. He returned with a tumbler filled with a thick, whitish liquid and offered it to her. She sighed and reached for her forehead again. “I don’t need a potion.”

“This is a different sort of restorative.”

She took it from him and sniffed. Her face abruptly pinched into unnatural angles.

“Those who pass so many hours without food need a special kind of sustenance.”

She tasted it and shuddered, but she forced herself to swallow the entire portion. By the time she returned the tumbler to him, her face consisted purely of wrinkles opposing each other in a series of alien angles. “Goat’s milk,” she muttered. “And something else.”

“Herbs from the garden and a raw egg.”

Her face eased, but she threw a glare at him for an instant.

“Does your ankle still hurt?”

“Not much.” Still flushed from the strong flavors of her drink, she chuckled weakly. “ _That’s_ why you did it.”

“Have you always neglected yourself so much?”

Her faced paled. She stood. “I don’t need a lecture. I know what I need to do to finish what we started.” She paced her quarters, tender-footed but determined. “It’s taking too long.”

“An easy thing to say when dread shadows your every move.”

She snorted and paced faster. “And _that’s_ easy to say when you aren’t clever enough to be frightened about something.” Her ankles toyed with folding over in the course of several steps. She swayed but continued walking.

In a silent, gliding move, Solas was at her side. “Sit down.” He braced one of her arms and made her stand still.

“It’s alright.”

“Your body clearly disagrees.”

She shot him an icy glare, but the look she found in his face dispelled it.

She shakily shuffled across the room with him. He settled her back onto the couch, though she locked her knees in place and refused to actually lay down again. She folded her arms in a hurry, initially with jutting, angular elbows –  like a petulant child – but the gesture soon changed into that of a weary night guard desperate for a moment of respite. She folded into herself for a moment, her feet planted on the floor like a mighty act of defiance. She sighed twice, a ragged edge behind both breaths. She leaned back on the couch. Absentmindedly, so did he. She stared at the far side of the room. She leaned into him in the same instant that he reached to brace her. She wept. With the delicacy of a quillmaker, he leaned his head against the crown of hers as he held her barely-containable spasms, his arms completely encircling her now. The tension in her muscles released as her hands dropped limply to her lap. Dark, inarticulate noises rose from her and resonated against his chest like air through a flute. He closed his eyes. A single tear escaped down his cheek and nestled unnoticed in her hair.

* * *

An hour or more passed. Speechless but far from mute, she railed and wracked, as eager to flee herself as she was to seek aid. More than once, she flattened her palms against her temples, perhaps to counter the effects of such fierce outlet.

Solas held her as if a tangible storm threatened to break all around the two of them. As her grief intensified, her throat increasingly failed, yet the force of what lurked inside her drove her ever onward. When she finally paused from keening, it was only to clutch at her own throat. Solas finally released her to hurry for water. She coughed in the brief interval that followed. He pushed the tumbler into her hand. She downed the contents greedily. He filled it thrice more before her panic subsided and she could swallow or breathe with a semblance of normality.

Her mouth opened and closed like a suffocating fish several times. “I–”

“No,” he cut over her. “Not yet. Rest your voice.”

She did, though her eyes hummed with activity in place of her throat. After a few moments, Solas put two fingers on either side of her neck. She tried to remain still as he placed healing magic to quiet her furious lymph glands. She watched him closely this time as he worked.

“You need help, _da’len_.”

“I know,” she murmured, the shapes of the words barely recognizable.

“The Inquisition needs a focused leader. You cannot be one if the past is chasing you.”

“Like a wolf?”

He winced, though his inspection of her throat partially disguised it. He peered intently at her skin and frowned upon noticing a swollen vein that hadn’t yet receded into its proper place.

“I’ve seen you on missions.”

He swallowed calmly as he continued his work. “Have you?”

“Your magic. Vivienne thinks it’s because you learned outside the Circles. Dorian thinks it’s because you’re more ruthless than you look.”

“Neither is entirely incorrect.”

She waited a moment, her swallowing still strained. “I think you _are_ a wolf.”

“Like the fearsome one of Dalish legends?”

She focused hard on him, unblinking.

He looked away for an instant. “That was unnecessary. I spoke without thinking.”

“It’s not true anyway.”

“The legend or the idea?”

“A legend is a legend. An idea’s an idea.”

“Did you ever say that among your clan? I doubt that they would have tolerated such an opinion.”

Her keenness withdrew as he stepped away to refill her tumbler. She sighed. “Silence is an opinion, too,” she half-croaked.

Still facing away from her, he lowered his head. “Yes.” He returned to her with the water. “I know it is.” He sat down in the same place again and watched her.

She drank somberly, reasonably, methodically. She stared down when she had drained it, fingering the etched glass mercilessly, memorizing the pattern as if her breath depended on it. “It’s not that simple.”

“The foolish might say that you either enjoy darkness or are frightened of change. The truth is actually kinder. Few have the tools necessary to improve this kind of situation themselves, so they struggle instead. Outsiders notice the struggle. How can they not? But they seldom act to improve it.”

She fussed with her forehead again, more aggressively than before. “Because they don’t care.”

“Because they have no concept of where to begin.”

Deep inside her mouth, she gnawed her cheek, her jaw clicking slightly in determination. “But you _do_.” Her tone was subdued enough that her question settled low on the air as a statement.

“You already know the Fade. We both survived a physical manifestation there. Nearly every night, we both–”

“I know. But –” She frowned and squinted, her free hand wavering near her head but eventually losing its trail of thought. “It’s different.”

“Hardly. To those in control, there is little to truly fear. To the strong, threats are simple enough to recognize and avoid. And I –” His voice failed unexpectedly, normal and clear one moment and crippled in the next.

She finally looked up at him.

He swallowed – with effort. “I –”

In spite of her grief-reddened face and bloodshot eyes, a smile crept over her face as slowly as a sunset. She slowly clunked the tumbler on an end table.

“I –” he tried again.

She had barely reached for his necklace when he wrapped his palms around either jawline and pulled her toward him. Her lips were still unusually red and chapped from weeping. Her mouth muscles were slack from overuse, too committed to the freshly-quelled sneers and spasms of fear and rage to move normally for the gesture. Her cheeks were still damp from inexplicable renegade tears.

But the moment was equal between them. A flicker of refuge ricocheted between them three and then four times, too intent on steadiness to trifle with any bold displays. Two more tears snuck down her face as they parted. Then two more journeyed down his. His mouth mutely opened and closed twice while his eyes fought to find his original thought. “I would never lead you into danger if there was a safer road.”

She lowered her head, just as she had done before. But this time, there was no hint of groveling. She closed her eyes. “I know.”

“Do you trust me?”

She nodded.

He brought a thumb up under the tip of her chin and nudged her head upward. He fixed a smile on his face, though it took her a moment to open her eyes and see it.

“Yes.” Her voice was barely above a mutter, but it was unfettered, unwavering, unbroken. Yet her brow also strained to fend off a frown.

He saw it and deliberated. “You suffer in other ways.”

She swallowed spasmodically. “It’s nothing.” She dug her knuckles into her temples in earnest and sighed. “We all bear _something_. We bear it or we die.” Her eyes crinkled shut. Several small sobs broke over her anew. Her forehead glistened with fresh, clammy sweat as it gyrated between bodily pain and more grief.

He pulled at her wrists.

She opened her eyes. “It’s always been. It always will be. The world’s troubles will always be greater than mine.”

He stared – not at her eyes, but her vallaslin. “They burden you.”

“No one speaks of it.”

“ _I_ am.”

“It’s nothing. I _let_ them. There’s a difference. I’m weak. I –” Her face contorted as another wave of pain interrupted her. “I choose to be weak.”

He watched her. “How long have they pained you?”

“Why do you think they’re hurting me?”

“Anguish is always sharpest when the mind and the body disagree at the same time.”

“It’s just a headache.”

“You are still young, but your face bears the lines of one who has hurt every day.”

“And if I have?”

He lowered his gaze to the floor and pondered. “Something was wrong the day you were given them.”

“Or _I_ was.” 

His head flew up. His eyes were unblinking. She wavered but returned the gaze, unable to turn away. He still held her hands.

“Can’t you tell? They’re new. Or newer than some, anyway.”

“But–”

“I couldn’t do it at the proper age,” she sneered. She sighed and mildly curled away from him, though she still lent him her hands. “That’s what I tried to tell you. The more I use my magic – _any_ magic – the more I notice the rest of the world. I always felt pain more than others. Everyone said I cried more as an infant than the others. But it got worse after the magic came. A few raindrops might hurt if I’m tired enough. No one was surprised when the Keeper didn’t offer me a marking day. I didn’t ask for one. No one questioned it. They knew better.”

“An unusual situation,” he lilted meditatively.

“The only one in the last fifty years or better, so _I_ heard. Even the blind get them. Even the lame get them. Even the dull-witted get them if they’re strong enough and know what they mean.” She snorted. “I can’t believe you didn’t see it. I always wear shoes. I could never have enough pairs of gloves. I’d whimper for days from a damned _splinter_ , but I’d killed by the time some girls had had their first bleedings.”

“There are certain potions and tonics–”

“There’s not enough elfroot in the world to help this. Liquor helps even less.”

He swallowed. “Then perhaps a spell–”

“Nothing ever lasts for long. I’ve _tried_. _Others_ have tried.” Her head sank. “It’s just how things are.”

“Those are cheap words–”

“Not when it’s the truth,” she bit through the air.

He still held her hands. She still allowed it. Not once had her fingers clenched, twitched, or dug into his palms. He waited and watched while she tried to calm her breathing. “Does it always linger?”

“The worse the pain, the slower it is to leave. That never changes.” She leaned back against the couch, as if her spine was too weak to support her stature. “I’m grateful that my parents let me choose. Plenty don’t. By the time they’re of age, most children already show an aptitude. It’s a natural fit to mark them as such. And why not? What’s the harm in reminding them of their strengths? What’s the harm in giving them a tether?”

His upper arms shuddered, but his forearms successfully remained still.

“I chose Dirthamen to honor the freedom my clan showed me. They didn’t know what was best for me any better than _I_ did.” She shrugged and scoffed. “I don’t worship our gods any more than I worship Andraste. They’re only stories. All of it’s just a story. Most of it’s never offered a good answer for someone like me. Why should I believe in _any_ of them? Why should I ignore one more than another? Why should I expect them to protect me when I can’t even be a good example of any of them?”

He finally released her hands, though she drew them away stiltedly. She rubbed her eyes. Each time she scowled when a nerve angrily protested in her forehead, he scowled in tandem. “How long has it been?”

“I took the marks just before I left for the Conclave.”

He frowned. His head dipped, but the movement was slow and controlled. “You suffered as long as that?”

“That’s not so long. Everyone suffers – elves most of all. Was it ever really otherwise?” She snorted and rubbed her neck as ripples of aches caused contortions in various parts of her face. “Arlathan. Why should I believe _that_ , either? There’s more comfort in one Dalish lullaby than an entire tome about something we’ll never have again. And even if we _could_ , how could we know if it would be _anything_ like the stories?”

The lone finger that had formerly twitched on his hand hours earlier now clenched instead. “Then let me show you something else.”

“I can’t sleep _now_. I already lost a day. More.”

“What makes you think that you need to sleep to go into the Fade?”

She hesitated.

“What makes you think that you were still awake?”

Her head whirred back and forth.   

The vaguest impish shimmer passed through his eyes. “Are there normally trees outside your windows?”

She checked the windows again to see the lazy waving of branches’ silhouettes and mottled shadows. “What–”

“Come,” he smiled.

She stood, her face suddenly devoid of spasms and instead replaced by amazement.

They descended the stairs, but when Solas opened the door, it was nighttime. Skyhold was gone. A small glen surrounded them, midnight dew glittering in the moonlight. She scanned the area several times. She stepped gingerly in the deep grass and sparse, weedy flowers.

Solas stared on as she acclimated.

“What’s this?”

“Did you expect something else?”

It took her a long moment to face him or speak. “I thought–”

“There is no reason whatsoever to resurrect your own memories. You clearly remember them well enough.”

“So what’s _this_?”

“Come and see.”

They wandered a distance both short and far – the Fade had such an effect on time _and_ measurement. She glanced about, often no differently than a vigilant scout. Though the area was deserted apart from an owl and a number of insects, the dark textures of night made her twitch. Sparse breezes made strangely deafening echoes as they disturbed the dense, shivering leaves of ash trees, the black knots of their trunks scarcely less formidable than a demon’s eyes in the steady but dim moonlight. More than once, she reached behind her back, the finely-honed reflexive move for her stave too ingrained to override, even here.

Solas observed her but was unfazed. His stride remained quiet, even confident. There was no reason for it to be otherwise. But he swallowed. “There are times when that which we see is not the truth. There are times when a shadow means safety, not a threat.”

She sighed and flicked her eyes about as they walked. “I don’t know where we are. What do you expect?”

His smile – _that_ smile – resurfaced. “There are also times when a shadow is only a shadow.”

They reached a clearing much wider than the first. There were only two figures there. A heavily-cloaked man crouched low over a crude pot resting on a small campfire while a Dalish girl writhed on a small pile of skins a yard away. Her vallaslin were fresh. Her upper arms were bonier than a young halla’s fetlocks. She sweated. Her bronze skin – perhaps ordinarily a gleaming sight – had a hardened, tired look. She bore the many freckles of one who had wandered long and often in the wilds. Her hands and forearms showed glancing bruises and scrapes, as if she was clumsy – or a disrupted sleeper.

“Do you see them, _vhenan_?”

“Is that –” She swallowed hard as her throat failed. She stared. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes. You _do_.”

She stared awhile longer. “I didn’t know she had Dirthamen’s marks.”

“Few did. Few ever will.”

“Then that’s –”

Ameridan scooped the hot liquid from the pot into a small wooden cup. He inched along the ground by his kneecaps as he focused intently on not spilling the steaming contents. Telana suddenly howled. Her arms stiffened at her sides and her hands each squeezed a fistful of the makeshift blankets as her torso arced upward. Ameridan hastily rested the cup on a stone and rushed to hold her hands. The instant he did, her spine returned to the lambskins. She moaned as her head lolled. The motion gradually became gentler, even careful. Ameridan’s hands glowed as he uttered words in too quiet of a tone to easily note their meaning.

Telana stilled. Her breathing was strained, her pulse still visibly taxed. She suddenly coughed forcefully. She rolled onto a side, as if expelling water from her lungs. She gasped several times and reached for her throat, as if choking on an errant piece of food. He clapped her back.

The moment she stopped coughing, she writhed around. In a smooth whirl, she grabbed his wrist and held it fast, her fingers scarcely long enough to accomplish the task.

He laughed from deep in his abdomen.

She growled – not a grunt but a low, fierce hum.  

He went on laughing, but the noise was sufficiently musical that Telana’s snarled mouth soon smoothed. Two shadows grew between her eyebrows.

“Welcome back,” he finally chirped.

“Who are you?”

He smirked. “Someone who knows what desperation looks like well enough to ignore remarks like _that_.”

Telana hesitated and eventually wavered, yet her hand remained clamped around his wrist. “Do you look at everyone like this?”

He considered the question. His face furrowed unrelentingly. “Not when I’m allowed the use of all my limbs.”

She glowered.

He gestured to her hand with the barest bob of his chin. “Do you always draw blood as a greeting?”

She finally glanced down. Her fingernails had made five small but unmistakable punctures into his wrist. “Only when someone doesn’t understand what they’re looking at.”

“‘Who.’”

She cocked her head a fraction.

He shrugged with his face. “You’re not an animal or a chair, are you?”

The wind rustled her thick, sweat-caked locks – haphazardly astray in all directions – and his horsehair-like cluster of dark strands tied simply but methodically high on the back of his head. They stared each other down with the intensity of hunters stalking prey.

Telana let him go. She swallowed thickly and sighed. “Why did you help me?”

“Shouldn’t I have?”

“No.”

He reached for the little wooden cup and offered it to her. “You were prone by the side of the road. I might’ve been the only one to pass that way in a week or better.”

“Good.”

He leveled a keen, plain, unblinking gaze on her. She returned it. Once again, only the wind broke their concentration.

Telana looked down at the cup and sniffed it. Satisfied, she sipped it intermittently. Ameridan returned to the pot and stirred it several more moments. He took two bowls from a rucksack and scooped out the contents in earnest: soup. When Telana had finished with the broth – which took some time considering how often she paused to watch her rescuer – he pushed a bowl in her direction.

“What do you want?” she grunted, her throat still unused to both nourishment and speech.

“I want you to eat.”

She frowned at the bowl but relented. They both slurped and supped, content enough with the task of a meal and their apparent truce to stay mute for the duration. Telana finished hers too quickly for Ameridan’s liking, so he replenished it – twice.

“How long have you been traveling?” he finally nudged.

“A few weeks.”

“Alone?”

She closed her eyes and winced mildly. She placed the half-full bowl in her lap and wiped her mouth with a swipe of her forearm, but she hissed lightly when her mouth grazed a cut on the top of her wrist.

Without waiting for permission, Ameridan hurried to take her hand. He murmured more spell words. Telana’s annoyance was at odds with surprise at his competency and efficiency. She watched him work and did him the basic courtesy of sitting still until he had finished the healing. “You’re a mage,” she muttered.

“Why not?”

She shook her head, slightly dazed again. “I’m sorry. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen someone use magic without fear of being watched.”

“So you said.” He took a small wineskin from the rucksack, wrestled the cork open, and took a long but careful pull from it. “Why did you leave your clan?”

Telana snorted. “You know why. You saw.”

“I’ve never met a Dreamer.”

“Well, now you _have_.”

He held out the wineskin.

She gingerly sipped from it several times.

His eyes narrowed as his mouth fended off a grimace. “Is it always that bad?”

Her mouth busy with swallowing, she frowned and wagged her head. “Worse.”

“How long does it last?”

She took one more pull of wine – longer, and much less delicately now. She exhaled greedily as she handed the skin back to him. “As long as it lasts.” She ran her hands – still stiff and unsteady – through her dulled hair. She drew her knees up and hugged them tightly as she stared into the dying cooking fire. “You didn’t say what you wanted yet.”

“Why should I want anything? I have fine company on a fine night, with fine wards to guard against danger. What else is there to hope for?”

“Fallen for my charms, did you?”

“Not a bit of it. You’re talented.”

“How would _you_ know?”

“You can see things before anyone else does. You can learn things before they exist in this world. You talk in –” He cut himself off. “Did you know that?”

She vaguely rubbed her throat. “I must do. I’m usually too raw to speak when it’s over.”

“You need help.”

She drew her hand away barely in time to avoid scratching herself with her suddenly-rigid fingers. “I don’t need a damned thing from _you_ ,” she sneered hurriedly.

“Can you feed yourself when it happens? Can you move? Can you keep from falling off a hillside if a fit comes on you suddenly?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know it well enough. After all,” he smirked, “I’m a mage.” He mimicked her earlier tone flawlessly. “And I could use someone like you on my side.”

“For what?”

“Nothing you haven’t already seen or done.”

“That’s not an answer.” Her voice verged on biting.

He nodded conciliatorily. “Alright.” He finished the wine and smacked his lips clean as he replaced the cork on the wineskin. “I’ll give you a different one.”

The pause that followed sat ill with Telana, her wary readiness outweighing her bodily exhaustion. But she kept her silence. She watched him, the frustrated light in her face a different shade now. She watched him simply to watch him.

Ameridan folded his hands quietly in his lap. He smiled, not in jest this time. “How would you like to save the world?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After showing her some revelations in a Fade memory, Solas attempts to confront Ellana with the truth in a way meant to bring comfort. He is only partially successful, but the two come to understand that the calm before the final storm - and their showdown with Corypheus - can be a source of hope, not only despair.

The clearing blurred, as if driving sleet was trying to blot Ameridan and Telana out of existence entirely. But the air remained calm. Solas’ face fell. “The memory ends here, _vhenan_.”

Ellana shook her head hurriedly. “No. There must be more.” She stepped forward vaguely. Her hands both reached out into the empty air. “I can’t – I –” Her chin crumpled down hard for an instant. She breathed deeply but raggedly through her nose. “I need to see what happened next.”

“You already know what happened.”

“I need to _see_ it,” she shouted brokenly. She whipped around, her posture no longer at its full height. Her face compressed more and more by the second. Her lips tightened so much that they threatened to disappear entirely. “You can’t start to give someone hope and then take it away.”

Solas bridged the distance between them. The clearing remained. The moon’s glistening and shadows on the grass remained. Only Telana and Ameridan were gone. “You saw as much as you _needed_ to.” His voice was careful and close.

She chewed her lip mercilessly. “It wasn’t enough.”

“It can _always_ be enough if we know how to draw strength from something.”

“What wisdom was there in _that_?”

“You choose an interesting word.”

She frowned deeply. “What difference does that make? Damn you. Say what you mean. You never say what you mean. You –” Her face suddenly paled. She wheezed.

He rushed forward to brace her as her knees failed. She struggled for an instant, but he was too much of a tether to deny in her hurricane. Her hands clamped around him as she sobbed into his chest. There was nothing for either of them to say in that moment. Even her grief was silent this time. The dewy grass waved all around them as a gentle but prolonged breeze pushed the blades against their ankles. The moon shone on, its unflinching light neither friend nor critic.

“This burdens you too often,” Solas finally murmured. “It robs you of too many hours.” He swallowed. “And that is what you fear the most.”

She didn’t react.

“That is why wisdom weighs so heavily on you. You wonder how Ameridan found the strength to sacrifice himself as he did when it was unwise to do so. You wonder why Telana fought so hard to find him when it was unwise for her to try.” He frowned and cast his eyes downward. “You wonder how two people who bore the same marks as you could be so reckless and brave when you would rather turn your back on all you have seen.”

She stifled herself and finally lifted her head. She stared blearily at him, but she kept her silence, her eyes asking for his meaning better than words could.

“Telana tried to fight her talents. Desire often outweighs the impossible.”

“I don’t understand. How could she hide it?”

His eyebrows rose. “She did _not_.” He sighed, almost imperceptibly but for the tiny bob of his shoulders. “But she knew her fate before she even realized what she was. She knew how dangerous being a Dreamer could be. She knew that even if she could make her clan understand, it was kinder to live apart from them–”

She pulled away. He released her. She raised a finger. “Don’t.”

“I only sought to show you facts. You have always accepted the truth.” He glanced down furtively. “I have yet to see you flinch from it.”

“But you _would_ see me _crumble_?”

He swallowed. “Nothing can be built upon rubble. Some weapons must be forged with new metal instead of melted down from old remnants.”

“I’m a weapon, am I?” She turned away and dug her hands through her hair several times. She paced a haphazard little circle. “I know what you think of them.”

His head bobbed away into an unnatural angle of a stoop. “I have kept my silence.”

“But I’ve seen you. You have trouble looking Dalish in the eyes, but you’re kind to that servant lad from Val Royeaux – the unmarked one.”

“The choice was yours to make.”

“And I chose badly. That’s what you _want_ to say.”

“You never needed these marks to prove your worth. You never needed them to tell others what you value the most.”

She snorted – and he flinched at the noise. She sneered. “I believe in nothing – I don’t feel our gods’ presence and I don’t understand Andraste, even if I’ve tried. I’m the strongest blood mage my clan has seen in years, but I’d rather not have magic at all. I value _nothing_. Isn’t that obvious by now?”

“And yet you chose the god of wisdom’s mark.”

“What _choice_? A mage can only do so much for halla herders and bowmakers.”

“You strive for knowledge, not comfort or vengeance. Ameridan and Telana sought the same.”

“And they were _fools_.”

“Then so are you,” he lilted tightly. “You are either alike or you are not.” His words tumbled out in a curt hurry.

She shook her head. “How can someone who spends half his time in the Fade believe in black and white?”

“I do not.”

“Then why do you make choices sound so simple?”

“Because some _are_.”

Her arms waved at her sides for a long moment before she could form the words. “You make it sound like I could start over. You make it sound like I could choose a new name and a new face.”

He stared – carefully.

She sighed tightly and made several random steps through the grass. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. No one would notice if I tried to scratch them off. Marks are marks and scars are scars. Maybe I _should_ try to get them off. I’ve betrayed Dirthamen enough already.”

“You did no more or less than another would have done.”

“I was reckless.”

“Is it reckless to stand for freedom?”

Her face fidgeted about as she reached for a reply. “Solas, the men I killed were _sick_. I saw it. There were other things driving them besides cruelty. They weren’t in control of themselves–”

“And thus _you_ controlled them.”

“They were wronged. It wasn’t justice to fell the wronged.”

His eyes narrowed. “Justice is also the name of a spirit. Or have you already forgotten such a simple detail?” His voice slapped in waves against the damp night air. “Justice cuts both ways, just as wisdom does. And some spirits are never far from corruption. They are too fragile for this world. The Fade is a mercy to them, not a punishment – just as it is to you in this moment.”

“I can’t.” Her hand clamped onto her mouth. When she removed it, the moonlight emphasized the white indentations of her grip from an instant earlier. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t go on knowing what could have been and what I’ll never have. I can’t pretend that everything will be better when Corypheus is gone. It’s not –” She turned away and peered out at an invisible point in the distance. “It doesn’t feel that simple. It’s wrong. It’s –” She hugged herself tightly as if cold, despite the neutral temperature of the memory. “It feels like something else has a hand in this. It’s been like that since we dealt with Alexius. I understand the threats, but they’re not the only ones, and I just wish –” She wagged her head vaguely, as if shaking away mist. “It’s always just out of sight. I wish I could move my eyes to see it. I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to. I can’t prove it any more than I can ignore it. But nothing’s as simple as everyone wants to believe. I think they’re all fools.”

Solas took the opportunity to clench and then slowly unclench his fists while her back was turned. “Perhaps they _are_.” His footfall, normally silent, drew long stride lines through the grass and rustled dully. “But what of it?”

She frowned deeply and turned around, half bending away from him and half rigid. “That’s a damned funny thing for someone like _you_ to say.” Her arms tightened even more around her torso. “You blame everyone as easily as others breathe. Where’s your contempt for their folly?”

“Dire times change everything and everyone. If the choice is between despair and a dream, then by all means, let them cling to a dream.”

“A lie to keep them warm at night?”

“I –” he stammered. “Yes, if you must.”  

“Like your idea about removing vallaslin?”

His head dipped away, but not before his face flushed. “I never suggested that.”

One of her eyebrows rose. The light shifted in her eyes. “You suggested the impossible. You suggested false hope.”

“Those are very different situations. I–”

She cut him off by touching a single finger to his lips. They leveled neutral stares at each other for a moment. She bent down and wet her hand in the grass. She stood to her full height and traced several curls and lines on his cheek. “My marks matter as little as nighttime dew. That’s all you mean.”

He analyzed her. “And was I mistaken in saying that?”

She slowly cocked her head away from him and stared off in the distance again, as if listening hard for a noise. “I don’t know.”

She shook again – barely, but it was returning – not the sort from weeping but the kind that now resided in her bones. He saw it. It was inevitable. Even here, it was difficult to muffle it, never mind soothe it. The Fade wouldn’t contain her grief forever. He wouldn’t be able to hold them in that place forever. He took her hands. She was tall, but he towered above her when she was like this. He leaned in and rested his forehead against hers – barely. She sighed just short of a sob and closed her eyes.  

He waited. He listened to her breathing. He gauged the stillness in her hands. 

He closed his eyes and sighed, more quietly than any that she had made, but no less deeply – no less haggardly. The slightest whirl of air sounded out around their heads. Sunlight faded back into view. Her quarters became more solid, the room more distinct, a slight and momentary glimmer in shafts of light the only indicator that anything had been amiss.

Her arms, ordinarily lanky, were so heavy from being clenched that they could scarcely encircle him – and yet they did it all the same. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “It’s not finished,” she murmured. “It never is.”

Her weeping was gone, but the tremors returned in earnest, tight little shivers a harmony to the deeper shudders near her bones, the occasional uncertain breath providing a sudden jerk or jump amid the toneless, silent song emanating inside her. Solas glared out at the mountain range as he focused on remaining still, on being her tether. The storm in her mind was far from dissipated. It had only lost its momentum for a time, the winds swirling in too many directions against themselves to do more than bluster aimlessly. Slowly, dexterously, as if adding to the art that he had so carefully enhanced Skyhold’s rotunda with, he removed her arms.

She drew her head away. Her entire jaw quivered, though her face was calm. She studied him. He pressed her hands together and kissed them – only once, but slowly, his eyes closed as if beseeching a goddess. She stared, blank one instant and engaged the next, but always fixedly, unblinkingly.

“It’s not over.” Her voice was small and flat. Her lips had barely moved on the words. She shivered anew.

He pressed her hands together a fraction more firmly. “No.” He only narrowly disguised his worry as he watched her face graying again.

Her eyes narrowed, as if peering through another fog rather than at Solas. “It’s not over.” Her voice cracked, but there were recognizable intonations this time. She looked directly at him – as keenly as she had hours earlier. She shook harder – but still, no tears came.

Solas watched the curious cold sweat begin to form around the edge of her forehead. Neither the room nor she was inherently warm otherwise. He listened to her breathing. He felt her pulse as he held her hands fast. Without breaking gaze, he led her towards the hearth, step by tiny and uncertain step. Each time one of her ankles began to fold, he willed her on with nothing more than a tighter squeeze of her hands.

When he had led her to within several steps of the hearth – burning surprisingly brightly that day – he needed little power of persuasion to encourage her to sit. He guided her down to the thick rug in front of a low table and near the fireplace. She leaned against the table at first, and then into him once he joined her. He slipped his feet into a tidy knot under his legs. She had considerably more trouble with the movement and only managed to lean harder and harder into him until her face was resting on his kneecap. She pulled her legs up tightly into herself and hugged them.

He touched her hair, freshly dulled by strain and fear. He placed thumb and forefinger to the back of her neck and kneaded a noticeable muscle knot at the base of her skull. Gradually, her shudders and shakes lessened as the fire warmed her, though an occasional twitch or jerk persisted.

As if handling a sacred old scroll, he rested his palm on her shoulder. He waited.

Entire hours passed. Each time she stilled for awhile, she forced herself awake again. They said nothing. There was nothing left to say – for now. He waited until she was finally asleep to put a glancing kiss on the crown of her head.

He stared between her and the hearth. His face was as heavy as her head on his knee, but he smiled – barely. As if from another time and place, he murmured the adage once more.

“Take moments of happiness where you find them. The world will take the rest.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, congratulations and thank you! While I do genuinely consider the pairing in this story to be some degree of ace (but not aro), it wasn't initially a conscious decision. I was honestly more interested in character development than the nature of a relationship - although to me, there's definitely chemistry here and it isn't merely an exchange between the Inquisitor and an advisor. 
> 
> Furthermore, since this Lavellan is essentially suffering from PTSD throughout the course of the story, I wanted to depict a *fairly* realistic scenario (or at least a halfway plausible one). A person who is in shock may (and often WILL) act irrationally but, as a general statement, is unlikely to be excessively romantic or behave sexually unless they have poor impulse control or are under the influence of medication.
> 
> So if you must be reductionist or severe, then yes - this is an "incidentally ace" story. I simply wrote this couple in a light that felt authentic to me personally as a writer. If this means they're ace, then they're ace - period, full stop. I have tried to acknowledge the nature of their relationship (as I see it) without making it the main focus of the story because this isn't meant to be "just" a relationship story. There are plenty of those already and I wanted to do something different. I included ace tags because ace fanfic is relatively rare in some fandoms (especially Solavellan!!!) and it seemed to be an appropriate categorization, not because I was trying to be special or co-opt a particular type of relationship. [having said this, I can 99.9% guarantee that I will never post smut because it's just not my thing as a writer]


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